Moonshot Terms

22 July 2005

This past Wednesday was the 36th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, what is likely to be considered, in centuries to come, the most historic event of the latter half of the 20th century. On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin landed their lunar module, Eagle, in the Sea of Tranquility, while the third member of the team, Michael Collins, orbited the moon in the command module Columbia. The next day, Greenwich Mean Time, Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on our planet’s closest neighbor.

Historic events are usually accompanied by historic words, if not at the moment in question, then sometime afterwards. In the case of the first lunar landing, many of the most famous words were scripted in advance. The most famous of these the famous sentence of Neil Armstrong’s spoken when he first stepped onto the lunar surface:

That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.

But even the best script cannot overcome the speaker making an error in delivering the lines and in this case, Armstrong misspoke. It was supposed to be a "small step for a man." Armstrong omitted the indefinite article and in doing so omitted most of the significance of the phrase. Some say he said the word, but static in the transmission obscured it. But this is not the case; there is no static on the recording of the event. We can, however, forgive Armstrong for such a small error in the excitement of the event.

And even carefully written and edited statements can contain errors. A more official pronouncement of the event was the statement on the plaque that was placed on the base of the lunar lander (which remained on the lunar surface):

Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D.

William Safire, then a White House speechwriter, wrote this line. In an attempt to insert a reference to God, Safire included the abbreviation A.D., or anno domini, meaning in the year of our Lord. Safire claims that with this line he made the "first mistake made by an earthling on an extraterrestrial body." Safire’s self-admitted error was that A.D. should come before the year, not after. There are few, however, that would consider this to be a mistake, so Safire isn’t admitting to much. And Safire also erred in assessing his mistake, as he was most decidedly earthbound when he made the error, if error it was.

The third famous line from the mission was also spoken by Armstrong:

Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.

These weren’t Armstrong’s only firsts in linguistic history. He is credited with two first citations in the Oxford English Dictionary, for the words postflight, "There was some suspicion, lingering in the postflight shock of the first Sputnik, that this was the road the Soviet Union had chosen," and topo, "The best we can do on topo features is to advise you to look to the west of the irregularly shaped crater." Of course, he is unlikely to have actually coined these words, rather they were probably common in NASA jargon at the time. Armstrong gets credit because he used them in is 1970 book First On The Moon. 67 other words in the OED are given citations from this book by Armstrong, among them A-OK, hypergolic, lift-off, lunar, non-flammable, pitch, playback, preflight, psych, read-out, rocket, rog, selenocentric, slingshot, smack-dab, spaceship, splashdown, transearth, umbilical, undock, and zero-G.

(There is also this quote from the 1974 work Collector’s History of Fans, "Women...carried small fans with mounts of white gauze, silk or net, embroidered with garlands or Neo-classical motifs." Undoubtedly this is a different N. Armstrong.)

In comparison, Buzz Aldrin only gets a single citation in the OED, a quote for multi-engine from his 1973 Return To Earth, "He wanted me to go to a multiengine flight school and I wanted to be a fighter pilot." Collins gets no citations at all. These two have always been in Armstrong’s shadow because Armstrong made that first small step, and it is no different here. They co-authored First On The Moon with Armstrong, but the big dictionary doesn’t even list them as authors.

Tour de France Terms

15 July 2005

The Tour de France, or Le Tour, is without a doubt the most famous, and the most grueling, bicycle race in the world. Held each July since 1902 (with breaks during the world wars), this is the 92nd riding of the Tour. This year’s tour is 2,237 miles (3,600 km), broken up into 21 stages or daily rides. The tour’s route changes from year-to-year, running through different regions of France and with some stages in neighboring countries (this year it’s Germany). Of course, this year’s Tour is eagerly watched by many because it is Lance Armstrong’s last year riding the race. Armstrong has won the last six Tours, the only man to have won that many.

Traditionally, the race starts with short time trial of less than five miles called the prologue. A time trial is a stage where the cyclists ride individually, against the clock alone, without the assistance of teammates. Some time trials are team time trials, where each team rides as a group, but not alongside the other teams. This year, the prologue has been replaced with a longer, 12 mi (19 km) time trial. The final stage of the race is always along the Champs Elysees (literally the Elysian Fields), the famed Parisian avenue. Riders do three circuits of the street, each one about 15 kilometers long at very fast speeds. Winning this final stage is considered quite an honor.

Perhaps the most distinctive cycling term is peloton, the mass of riders in a race. The peloton is also informally called a bunch. Attack is both a noun and a verb meaning an aggressive move to break away from the peloton and take the lead in the stage. The attacker and the riders who jump and escape the peloton with attacker form a break or breakaway. When a rider takes a flyer, his teammates will block the chasers, or other riders attempting to catch up, so they can’t bridge or bridge the gap and catch the attacker. One kind of attack used at the end of the stage or in the sprint competition is for a teammate to leadout another rider, riding as fast as possible and allowing the second rider to draft behind him and then slingshot out in front and finish first. An attack by a group of riders just before a stage’s finish line is called a field sprint, or sometimes bunch sprint or pack finish. Cyclists who cross the finish line in a group are all awarded the same time for the stage.

Cyclists on the tour burn an astounding number of calories, 5,900 on average. To keep their energy up, they eat over 5,000 calories when in the saddle. Food is passed to riders by soigneurs (literally welfare man) in musettes, or cotton bags. Food can only be passed to riders in designated feed zones. Stages of the tour can be four or five hours long and, being human, the riders at times have to heed the call of nature. When one stops off the side of the road, he is said to be taking l’au naturel.

A large number of automobiles, called the caravan, follow the cyclists. Each team has a team vehicle that carries spare tires, spare bikes, food, water, and mechanics to assist with flat tires and mechanical problems. There are cars for race officials and for journalists. The SAG wagon or broom wagon (voiture balai) is the car that follows the caravan and picks up (sweeps up) riders who have dropped or fallen off the back. And in front of the riders is a publicity caravan of cars who drum up spectators for the race.

To bunny-hop is to jump over curbs and small obstacles, such as rocks, by lifting both wheels off the ground at the same time. In a road race like the Tour, catching air, even with a little bunny-hop is risky and usually a bad strategy, often resulting in a crash.

There are any number of words for crashing. They include auger in, biff, dump, and endo (a crash where the rider goes over the handlebars, end-over-end). Riders who crash usually end up with road rash, from scraping their skin along the pavement.

Crashing isn’t the only hazard. The Tour is a three-week race and endurance is key. When a cyclist reaches the limits of his endurance and is on the verge of collapse, he is said to blow up or bonk.

To draft or slipstream is to ride behind another cyclist, reducing the wind resistance and conserving energy. Drafting behind vehicles is prohibited. When there is a cross-wind, riders will often ride in echelon, or behind and to the side of the rider in front of them, drafting without being directly behind. Sometimes a team will form a paceline, riding in a line with the leader periodically pulling off to the end of the line, and the next rider pulling into the lead.

A rider’s cadence is the rate of pedaling, usually measured in revolutions per minute of one foot. A rider who is blocking others, will soft pedal, pedaling in a lower gear so he maintains cadence but is not applying power.

Many don’t realize it buy cycling is a team sport, with each team of nine riders focused on assisting one its riders to win the race. The team’s coach is called the Director Sportif. The team’s lead rider has a lieutenant, who rides close to him, chases down breakaways to keep riders from outpacing the leader, and allowing the leader to draft behind him. Lance Armstrong’s lieutenant is this year’s race is George Hincapie.

The standings in the Tour are called the General Classification or GC. Riders are ranked in the General Classification by the total amount of time it took them to ride all the stages. One can be first in the GC and win the tour without winning any of the stages. In addition to competing for the fastest times in the individual stages and the overall tour, there are also sprinting and climbing competitions.

Points, or primes (pronounced / preem /) are awarded to the riders who jam the fastest in designated sprinting zones and those who hammer on climbs. Hills are ranked into five categories, designated 4 through 1 and HC (hors categorie, beyond category). The harder the climb, the more points it is worth, with HC hills earning the most.

The rider who is number one in the GC is awarded the prestigious yellow jersey (maillot jaune). The yellow color was chosen because it was the color of l’Auto, the original corporate sponsor of the tour. The opposite of the yellow jersey is the lanterne rouge (red lantern), signifying the rider who is last in the GC. The term comes from the early days of the Tour when a car with a red lantern would follow the last rider. Other jerseys are the green jersey, awarded to the leader of the sprint competition, the polka-dot jersey, worn by the King of the Mountains or the leader in the climbing competition, and the white jersey, worn by the rider under 25 years of age who is highest in the GC.

So if you catch any of the coverage of this year’s race, you’ll now be a bit more familiar with the lingo of the sport of cycling and its greatest race.

Trojan War Terms

8 July 2005

Most of us are familiar with at least some military slang. We hear it on the news, or in movies, we served in the military at some point. But this week we present a look at some terms associated with a war from very long ago.

These terms are English words and phrases that are associated with the Trojan War, a mythic conflict immortalized in Homer’s two epics The Iliad and The Odyssey and in Virgil’s Aeneid.

Achilles’ heel, n, the only vulnerable spot. From the Greek warrior Achilles, who as an infant was dipped in the river Styx by his mother, the nymph Thetis, to protect him from harm, but she held him by the heel and that spot remained vulnerable. During the siege of Troy, Paris killed Achilles with an arrow to the heel. In figurative use in English since 1810. Also the Achilles’ tendon, name for the tendon in the heel, from 1900.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, c.phr., warning against those who give unexpected gifts, a reference to the Trojan Horse. From Virgil’s Aeneid:

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.
(I fear the Greeks, even when bringing gifts.)

Cassandra, n., a prophet who is not heeded. From Cassandra, the daughter of Trojan king Priam, who was gifted with prophecy by Apollo, but when she did not return his affections was also cursed in that no one would believe her. She foresaw the deception of the Trojan Horse and the fall of Troy, but no one heeded her warnings. In figurative use since before 1688.

Electra complex, n., psychological disorder where a woman has undue affection for her father and hostility toward her mother, the female version of an Oedipal complex. Coined by Jung in 1913 after Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who avenged her father’s death by arranging for the killing of her mother, who had killed Agamemnon.

Face that launched a thousand ships, c.phr., a reference to Helen and the number of ships the Greeks were said to have sent to avenge her kidnapping by Paris. From Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (1604):

Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!
Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies!

Hector, n. & v., a braggart or bully, to bully or intimidate. From Hector, the hero of Troy. In metaphorical use since 1655, after a London gang that had taken the name of the character.

Lotus-eater, n., one who surrenders to luxury and sloth. From the people encountered by Odysseus who ate Lotus flowers and thus drugged, forgot the cares of the world. In figurative use since 1847.

milli-Helen, n., unit of beauty capable of launching one ship. In jocular use.

odyssey, n., a long journey, a series of journeys. After Odysseus and the Homeric poem of that name that detailed Odysseus’s twenty-year journey home after the Trojan War, a journey that was a punishment of the gods for his conceiving of the idea for the Trojan Horse and the slaughter that followed.

Sinon, n., a liar. After the Greek warrior Sinon, who according to Virgil, was left behind by the Greeks to induce the Trojans to take the horse within the city walls. In figurative use since 1581.

Siren, n., an attractive woman, one who charms and deceives. From the mythological creatures, half bird, half woman, who lured sailors to their deaths on rocky shoals with their singing. Odysseus successfully sailed past the Sirens by plugging his sailors’ ears with wax, but had himself tied to the mast so he could hear their song. First used figuratively by Shakespeare in The Comedy of Errors.

Trojan, n., a good companion, a merry fellow. Since 1600.

Trojan horse, n., a deception that entails a person or thing being accepted into confidence or possession and then subsequently betraying that trust, a computer program that is deliberately installed on a system but which contains hidden instructions that cause damage. From the deception used by the Greeks to penetrate the walls of Troy. In figurative use since 1600. Computer usage dates to 1981.

Newspaper Jargon

1 July 2005

This week we present a short glossary of newspaper jargon terms:

above the fold, adj., used to describe an article placed on the top half of the front page, so it is visible when the paper is folded. Also below the fold.

agate, n., a small type used in newspapers primarily for statistics (sports, stocks), approximately 5.5 points (1/14 inch) high. An American term (the English equivalent is ruby type) dating to 1838, the name comes from a series of typefaces named after precious stones.

beat, n., subject matter habitually covered by a reporter. The term dates to 1721 in reference to a watchman’s round or course, generalizing to other professions and activities by 1786. Ultimately, it comes from the verb to beat, probably from the feet beating the ground, but perhaps from beat over old ground or to beat the bounds.

break, n., the continuation of a story on another page, cf. jump.

breakline, n., the last line of a paragraph; In good typographic practice, it should contain at least five letters and should not be used to begin a new page or column; since 1683.

broadsheet, n., a newspaper printed on large, sheets of paper folded along the width; a newspaper containing serious journalism about important issues; since 1840. Cf. tabloid.

budget, n., the amount of space given to a news department to print its stories.

bulldog, adj., US term indicative of an evening edition of a newspaper, 1926.

bury the lede/lead, v. phr., to place what should be the prominent story inside the paper, to place the most important element of the article many paragraphs down, cf. stuff.

by-line, n., the line in an article, usually at the top, that names the writer, 1926.

column inch, n., measurement of space in a newspaper, a one inch tall by one column wide space, since at least 1940.

copy desk, n., where articles are edited and headlines and captions are assigned, 1929.

cutline, n., a caption, 1938.

dateline, n., the line in an article, usually at the top, that designates the date the article was filed and usually the place it was filed from, 1888.

deadline, n., the time at which material must be ready in order for it to appear in a particular edition of the paper, 1920.

embargo, n. & v., a condition placed on source material that prevents publication before a specific date, to place such a condition on material given to a newspaper. Sources often give information to papers in advance so that stories can be written and editions planned.

evergreen, adj., used to describe a story that can be run at any time, a feature story as opposed to a topical one.

FOIA, n. & v., pronounced / foy-yah /, the Freedom of Information Act, a 1966 US law that requires the federal government to release records to anyone who asks for them, with exceptions made for records containing private information about individuals, national security information, etc.; to request government records under this law.

folio, n., the page number and, usually, the newspaper name and date which appears in the upper, outer corner of a page, since 1683.

front, v., to place a story on the front page.

gutter, n., the space between columns.

inside, n., the parts of the newspaper other than the front and back pages.

jump line, n., the line just before or after a jump that indicates the page and column where the story continues or originates. Also turn line.

jump, n., the continuation of a story on another page, cf. break.

justify, v., to align type so that it is even on the left and right hand sides, 1671.

lead, n., pronounced / led /, the space between lines in a page, from the strip of lead that was once used to separate lines of type, 1808.

lead, n., pronounced / leed /, the most important article in the paper, usually placed in the upper right columns of the front page.

lede, n., the start of a story, summarizing the essential elements and containing a hook to keep the reader’s attention, variant spelling of lead used to avoid confusion with the preceding.

mainbar, n., the primary story in a cluster of articles about a particular topic, a back formation from sidebar.

masthead, n., 1. the title of the newspaper, from the location at the top center of the front page analogous to the masthead of a ship, by extension the newspaper itself, 1838. 2. the list of publishers and editors, contact information, subscription rates and information, etc., usually on the editorial page in one the first few pages of the paper, 1934.

morgue, n., 1. the repository of information on persons to be used in writing their obituaries, 1903. 2. the paper’s collection of old articles, clippings, and reference materials, 1918.

off-lead, n., the second most important story in the paper, usually placed either in the upper left corner of the front page or on the right-hand side, directly below the lead.

op-ed, n., the page facing the editorial page, usually containing outside commentary and letters to the editor, from opposite editorial, 1931.

pica, n., a unit of measurement equal to one sixth of an inch or twelve points, of uncertain origin, 1588.

point, n., a unit of measurement equal to 1/72 of an inch, 1890.

pool, n., a group of reporters from various publications who cover a particular beat and take it in turns to stand duty, sharing information and reportage with each other; used when only a limited number or reporters can be accommodated; from the betting sense of a resource into which everyone contributes; in general use to mean a shared pool of workers since 1928.

proof, n., a printed copy of an article before it has gone to press, used for editing and correcting errors, from the sense of something produced for use in a test, 1600.

refer, n., pronounced / reefer /, a short notice on the front page of an article or feature contained inside, from referral or reference. Also known as a whip.

scoop, v. & n., to report a story before the competition, a story so reported. In journalistic use since 1884, from the gambling sense of to scoop the pot, to get the better of, to beat, 1850.

side-bar, n., a newspaper article that contains secondary information related to another, main story, 1948.

slug, n. & v., internal title for a story, usually one word, to give a story such a title, 1925. Also slug-line.

spike, v., to refuse to print a story, to kill a story, from the act of spindling deficient stories, 1908.

spread, n., a story that runs across the whole of two facing pages.

string, n., the columns set by a compositor or written by a correspondent attached in a long strip, the length of which was used to determine compensation, 1875.

stringer, n., a correspondent or photographer who is not an employee of the paper, but does piece work, 1952. See preceding.

strip, n., a story that runs across the entire width of a page.

stuff, v., to place a story, esp. an important one, inside the paper.

tabloid, adj. & n., characteristic of reporting that makes the news understandable and accessible, often sensational and lurid; also used to refer to newspapers printed on smaller sheets, folded lengthwise (cf. broadsheet). In journalistic use since 1901 as an adjective, 1918 as a noun, from an earlier pharmaceutical trademark for tablet or pill.